Far From Over
by Jesse A. Harper
Summary: It was stupid, really. Just because she traveled all through time and space with an immortal alien didn't mean that other things - things that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up - were real. Corey has some encounters that can't be explained.
1. Chapter 1: Lacking Faith

**Far From Over**

**Part One: Lacking Faith**

_Michigan, 2010_

Castiel frowned slightly as he stared at Dean's pendant, the small bronze shape lying limply in his hand before he closed his fingers around it and looked up at the old church that he was currently standing in front of. The pendant had started acting… oddly, to say the least. It was supposed to help him find God, and yet it led him to this old church. The angel let out a long sigh, an increasingly more human emotion, as he stuffed the pendant into the pocket of his trench coat and proceeded up the stone walkway to the church, pushing open one of the massive wooden doors in the process.

The search for his Father was starting to become trying.

When he entered the still hall where the sermons were usually delivered, he was surprised to find that no one was there, not even a priest; at least until he spotted the teenage girl kneeling on one of the pews a few rows to the front of him. She sat there with her eyes closed and her hands clasped tightly together as she softly whispered the words to the Lord's Prayer, occasionally stumbling over a phrase, although whether it was from inexperience or the lack of recent prayer, he had no idea. Her long reddish-blonde hair hung down her back in a tight braid, and the shorter strands not restrained by the braid dangled limply in her face. She was clad in clothes that looked a little too big on her, but were both in good repair; a green, blue and white checked flannel shirt and a pair of dark wash blue jeans, as well as a scuffed-up pair of brown leather work boots.

Castiel stood there and watched her for a few more moments before he started to head up towards the pulpit with the intention of locating the priest and speaking to him, only to be distracted by the odd warmth coming from the pocket of his coat where he had placed Dean's pendant. The angel reached down and slowly withdrew the necklace before he stared at it curiously. It was… _glowing_.

A soft yelp from the pew where the girl was sitting startled him, and he looked up in time to see the teen look down at something that was hanging around her neck before she quickly reached up and stuffed it underneath her shirt. Curious…

The girl let out a long sigh and ran her hand down her face in an obvious gesture of exasperation before she got to her feet, letting out a soft hiss as circulation returned to her legs after kneeling for a long period of time, and started to head for the door. Castiel stepped out of the shadows and directly into her path, causing the teen to stare at him with wide grey eyes as she quickly came to a stop. The angel cocked a dark eyebrow before he attempted to soften the intense look on his face that so many humans found disconcerting, and looked down at the young human.

She blinked, and then gave him a somewhat sheepish smile as she stuffed her hands into her pockets, pulling back the tails of her unbuttoned flannel overshirt and revealing the dark gray t-shirt she wore underneath.

"Sorry, I didn't realize that anyone else was here," she apologized as she reached up and rubbed the back of her neck nervously. "It's just been a while since the last time I went to church…"

"And I apologize for frightening you," Castiel said as he inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement to the younger girl. "It was not my intention. I was unaware that anyone else was in here as well."

The girl gave him a wry smile as she let out a soft chuckle and glanced over her shoulder at the large wooden carving of Jesus hanging on the cross suspended at the front of the room. Castiel quirked an eyebrow slightly as he followed her gaze, and then cocked his head slightly.

"Why have you not been to church recently?"

An odd expression crossed the girl's face, a slightly pained look that Castiel had learned to associate with a situation that the individual in question did not wish to talk about, before she managed to smile weakly. She let out a soft sigh as she reached up and rubbed the back of her neck, averting her gaze slightly.

"I guess you can say that I kind of lost faith," she finally admitted as she shifted uncomfortably in her spot. Castiel gave the girl an odd look, not understanding what she was saying.

"Why have you lost your faith?" he asked. It was unusual to hear this from someone so young. Didn't most human children want to believe in the divine? Dean had never believed, so his reluctance to accept anything coming from heaven was to be expected. The girl's eyes widened slightly as she looked up at him, almost as though she had recognized him from somewhere, and she paled somewhat.

Castiel frowned as he regarded the teen curiously. Did she know Jimmy Novak? It could become problematic if this girl, this child, knew his host. Castiel was painfully aware that he could never act like the man whose body he now controlled.

"Umm… just… stuff happened," she stammered hesitantly as she reached up and made as though to fiddle with something hanging around her neck, only to draw back when she realized that it wasn't there. Castiel thought back to whatever she had hidden under her shirt earlier. For all intents and purposes, this girl appeared as though she was hiding something.

The young human looked up at him, and stormy gray met vivid blue for an instance before the girl's gaze faltered, and she looked down at the ground.

"My family died in a car crash a few years ago," she finally said in a small voice. "I was the only one who survived. Like I said, it's kind of hard to have faith when everything you know is taken away from you because of one thing."

Castiel nodded in silent agreement as he directed his own gaze to the cross hanging in the front of the church. "I understand."

Silence reigned between the two for several moments before the girl glanced over at him, an expression of polite curiosity on her face.

"So, why are you here?" she hedged.

"I'm looking for God."

Unexpectedly, the girl burst into wry laughter as she shook her head.

"You and me both," she muttered softly, a slightly hurt look flickering in here eye as she looked up at the wooden figure that hung suspended from the cross. "You and me both."

Castiel wasn't quite sure how to respond to that particular sentiment.

The girl seemed to sense that she had said something that she probably shouldn't have and promptly flushed a rather odd shade of red in obvious embarrassment as she averted her gaze momentarily. An awkward silence passed between them before she glanced back over at Castiel and offered him an abashed grin, obviously attempting to make up for her earlier comment.

"Well, I think you're in the right place to start," she offered sheepishly, and received an unfathomable stare in response. Words seemed to fail the teen as she quailed slightly under the angel's intense gaze. The girl didn't say anything else as she slowly lowered her eyes before she glanced down at the watch she wore around her right wrist, and then promptly groaned.

"Crud. I need to get going, otherwise the-" Castiel watched in interest as the teen cut herself off, apparently about to say something that she shouldn't, before she corrected herself. "Sorry, I told my friend that I'd meet him at the bookstore in an hour, and it's been an hour now, so I'm probably going to get a text or a phone call or something with him asking where I am."

With that statement, she turned around started to head for the door, pausing only to look over her shoulder and give the angel a faint smile.

"I hope you find what you're looking for," she said kindly, although there was still a faint hint of sadness lurking in her eyes. And with that statement, she exited through the heavy wooden front doors.

Castiel stood there for a few moments, mulling over the strangeness of humans in general, much less female humans, before he started back towards the back of the church to finish his earlier task. It was only then that he noticed that the pendant had ceased its strange actions. The angel blinked as he stared down at Dean's pendant, and was suddenly struck with the very human urge to curse.

He was back to where he started now.

* * *

Corey Matthews let out a long sigh as she reached up and rubbed the back of her neck before she chanced a glance over her shoulder, sending a weary look at the old church behind her. That guy in there was kind of… odd. For some weird reason he really reminded her of Misha Collins, heck, he even looked like him. But what would an actor be doing in an old church out in the middle of northern Michigan?

Although, to be honest, it was hardly old if one compared it to the churches in Europe. This church was probably built sometime in the early 1900's, whereas some of the old European churches were constructed centuries ago. And getting to see said churches while they were actually fairly new and in pristine condition…

Corey chuckled wryly as she realized that she was rambling, even while thinking. Yet another trait that the Doctor had somehow rubbed off on her. The girl shook her head and stuffed her hands back into her pockets as she set out down the dirt road that led back towards the main part of town as she forcibly booted her mind back onto the topic at hand. Again, why on earth would Misha Collins, or at least someone who looked like him, be hanging around an old church?

The girl froze for a second as a thought came to her, and she half turned around to glance back at the aged wooden building once again with wide gray eyes. Now that she thought about it, he was acting like the character Castiel… and he was most certainly dressed like him… maybe they were filming a scene from _Supernatural_ somewhere around here? Or, perhaps Misha Collins was just practicing his whole 'Castiel' act and trying to get into the mindset of the character.

Corey let out a low laugh as she turned back around and resumed her trek back towards the town, biting back the urge to hang around to see if she could grab a peek at one of the other actors running around – assuming that they were actually filming an episode here that is. She wouldn't tell the Doctor about this; he's just laugh and ruffle her hair. Not that she minded that, of course, but she also wanted to evade another three hour long discussion on what creatures did and didn't exist, and whether or not the legends on them were correct. She also really wanted to avoid the argument on the non-existence of any divine powers. The Doctor was really stubborn when it came to the whole 'science vs. religion' thing; 'stubborn' here meaning 'the supernatural does not exist, period'.

And this was coming from the man who traveled through time and space in a Police Public Call Box.

It was funny though. Corey had been a lot more relaxed while traveling with the Doctor and seeing the sights that he'd shown her over the past few months than she had been in a long time. It was just that incident with the shape-shifter the other day… the girl broke off that thought with a shudder, recalling the look of absolute betrayal the thing wearing her father's face had given her right before she had flung the powdered silver she had carried right into its eyes.

She didn't think that she'd ever forget that, even if she lived to be a thousand.

Corey scowled as she recalled the real reason why she had begged the Doctor to give her an hour to herself, and raked a slightly shaking hand through her hair. Fighting the shape-shifter had dredged up memories that she would much rather stay buried. And for some reason, even though she hadn't stepped inside a church outside of Christmas and Easter mass for years, she still remembered the feeling of peace the structure had given her as a child. So, she had gone to the closest church in the small town that the Doctor had landed in 'for a bit of a breather'. And surprisingly, praying had made her feel better… if only a little.

A cold breeze blew through the trees surrounding the dirt road, and Corey hunched down slightly as she tried to avoid the chill biting at the exposed flesh of her neck. She really should have brought her jacket with her, but she hadn't really been thinking at the time. The girl frowned slightly, and muttered something under her breath about toughing it out until she got back to town.

Suddenly, all the hair along the back of her neck stood straight up, and Corey whipped around to stare back at the church with wide eyes, the strong wind blowing her bangs straight into her face. For one moment there, she could have sworn that she had heard the sound of large wings flapping behind her, but there was nothing there. Unconsciously, the girl shivered slightly as she glanced around to observe the forested landscape, the overcast sky lending it a bleak light, before she turned around and started to double-time it back to town. She didn't know what had just happened, but something about it set her on edge.

She also needed to ask the Doctor about her necklace. The last time she had checked, it was just a replica of Dean Winchester's actual necklace. Hell, there was even a 'made in China' stamp on the back engraved into the metal. It wasn't supposed to start glowing out of nowhere.

Maybe it had accidentally gotten exposed to some weird phosphorus or something on one of the planets they had visited recently. But still, it wasn't supposed to glow.

With that thought in mind, Corey pulled the necklace out from under her t-shirt and was surprised to see that it had stopped glowing. The girl cocked an eyebrow curiously, but shrugged it off as she released the metal pendant and resumed her trek back to town. The Doctor was probably wondering what was taking her so long anyways.

The thought that she had just encountered something completely out of the ordinary, even by her standards, never even crossed her mind.


	2. Chapter 2: The Evil In the Dryer

All of these are just a series of slightly non-linear events between my character Corey Matthews from my 'Doctor Who' story _Run With You_ and various members of the Supernatural cast.

**Far From Over**

**Part Two: The Evil in the Dryer**

_Colorado, 2007_

Dean Winchester was bored.

Were he to voice that particular statement, it probably would have resulted in mass chaos, stars falling from the sky, flaming woodchucks running around in the streets while singing 'Zip a De Do Dah', Sam announcing that he actually _liked_ Metallica, and other impossible things occurring that usually signified that the world as we all knew it was about to end.

Which was exactly why he said nothing. He really didn't want to test his luck any more than they already had recently, and he did not want to stop another Apocalypse. Well, that was if you counted accidentally opening the Devil's Gate as the Apocalypse.

It was just… doing laundry was so damn _boring_.

"Dean, stop tapping out Metallica on the washing machine," Sam finally groaned as he looked up from the book that he had brought along on their much-needed trip to the Laundromat.

They had already been there for well over an hour, and Dean had been slowly spiraling into the deepest pits of absolute boredom. Before the eldest Winchester could descend into a typical sibling bitchfest with Sam, something off to his right caught his attention. The man turned his head slightly and focused his attention on the teenage girl who was currently operating the washing machine two down from theirs. A wide grin split his face as he watched the girl, who didn't look any older than fifteen, determinedly roll back the sleeves of her maroon and white plaid flannel button-down that she was wearing over a black band t-shirt before she shoved a large load of dark clothing consisting mostly of jeans and t-shirts into the washer.

"Hey, doesn't that bring back memories?" he asked quietly as he indicated at the teen, directing Sam's attention over to the girl, who was now muttering some very unflattering things under her breath as she stuffed the dirty clothing down into the top-loading washer. Sam cocked an eyebrow curiously as he watched the girl, who had her long reddish-blonde hair continually falling into her face as she worked, methodically measure out laundry detergent and fabric softener into the appropriate slots in the machine before she slammed the lid shut. Once she had finished the task, she flopped down onto a nearby plastic chair and grabbed a paperback novel that she had obviously brought along to read while finishing her chore.

"Yeah, it does," Sam admitted with a chuckle before he gave Dean a teasing smirk. "Only I don't think that you would be caught dead reading something called the _Dresden Files_."

The older hunter took a quick glance at the figure depicted on the cover of the book and frowned. The man on the cover was wearing a long trench coat that looked like it came straight off of the set of _El Diablo_, and held a long rune-covered staff that was almost as tall as he was in his hand.

"Sheesh, wizards man," Dean grumbled as he sat back down, giving the girl a somewhat irritated look. "Kids these days. I don't get why they're so into all of the magic crap."

"That's because they don't know half the stuff we do," Sam pointed out patiently.

Both hunters rolled their eyes in exasperation as they leaned back in their seats and engaged themselves in their own activities. Sam pulled his laptop out of his bag and started to look up information on a potential hunt that they had discovered earlier, and Dean chose to occupy himself by flipping through an issue of _Busty Asian Beauties_. Fortunately, the girl was the only person occupying their aisle of washers and dryers, so Dean didn't have to worry about getting chewed out by an angry parent for reading something like that in 'plain sight'. After a while, his attention was caught by a muffled snort, and he looked up just in time to see the girl give his magazine an amused look, her lips twisting into a somewhat wry smirk before she returned her attention back to her book.

"What?" he asked defensively, and the girl immediately looked up at him with wide grey eyes before she gave him a somewhat sheepish grin.

"Umm… sorry, I wasn't trying to be rude," she offered with a shrug as she got up and walked over to the dryer that she was waiting for, shifting from foot to foot slightly. "I just didn't think that they actually made those things."

"What things?"

"That magazine."

Dean glanced down at his porn and cocked a questioning eyebrow at the kid. She gave him another sheepish smile and reached up to brush her long bangs out of her face, tucking the wayward strands of hair behind her ear. At that moment, the dryer that she had been watching started to make a series of odd noises, the majority of them sounding like something pounding on the door and swearing.

The girl jerked involuntarily and spun around to face the machine, a startled look on her face as she went and crouched down in front of the door.

"What the hell?" she muttered softly as she frowned at the metal door, confusion flickering across her face as she slowly reached out to place her palm on the vibrating metal. The swearing increased in volume, and Dean scowled as he stood up and started to head over to the girl's dryer. Something freaky was going on, and he didn't want the kid to get caught up in it any more than she already was.

At that exact moment, the door to the still-operating dryer flew open, accompanied by a miniature explosion of half-dried clothes. Dean immediately grabbed the girl by the collar of her overshirt and dragged her backwards, ignoring her sputtered curses as she viciously yanked a wet t-shirt off of her face. By this point, Sam was standing up and looking at the small pile of clothing that had exploded out of the dryer, his expression somewhat apprehensive. Before either of the Winchesters could react, something inside the heap of damp clothes started moving.

The girl stared at the obviously alive lump for a few moments in obvious bewilderment before she scowled darkly at it.

"I swear, if that's a damn rat, I will _not_ be a happy camper," she growled threateningly. The lump moved, and somehow it managed to break free of the confines of the wet laundry before it jumped up and landed on top of one of the dryers.

It was a teddy bear.

It was the Snuggles fabric softener teddy bear to be more precise. And it was holding a gray sports bra in its front paws.

Dean felt his jaw drop as he gaped at the stuffed toy, almost oblivious to the look of absolute fury that the girl was giving the bear. It was a look that promised much pain and suffering, and possibly even torture. Before he or Sam could do anything – namely blast the fuzzy little bitch's ass back to the dryer from whence it came – the girl roughly wrenched herself free from his grasp and hurled herself at the stuffed toy, a litany of incredibly foul verbal abuse falling from her lips as she snatched the bear off of the top of the dryer… and threw it against the wall.

The yelp alone from the Snuggles bear could have shattered windows, never mind the god-awful squeal that it unleashed when the girl immediately proceeded to viciously punt it across the room. While letting some truly vile expletives fly from her mouth as she stalked over to the animated teddy bear, the girl stomped down on the thing's stuffed head – **hard** – and immediately silenced it. The weak groan that emerged from the thing's mouth after it fell still however, indicated that she had only managed to knock it out, and not kill it like her expression indicated that she so desperately wanted to.

For a moment, Dean and Sam could only stare incredulously at her as she stood there, her expression one of absolute outrage as she sucked in a series of deep breaths in an obvious effort to calm down, before she immediately shrugged out of her flannel button-down and proceeded to truss up the teddy bear inside in what appeared to be a truly painful fashion. Once the girl had tightly wrapped up the stuffed animal inside the confines of her shirt, she stormed back over to where she had been sitting and immediately stuffed the fabric-covered bundle down inside her backpack before she viciously zipped it shut.

"Oh, I am so going to _kill_ my brother for this," the teen growled out as she moved over towards the dryer that she had been using and crouched down in front of it before she started to pick up her damp clothing. Dean cocked an eyebrow curiously at her statement before he moved over and helped the girl retrieve her unfinished laundry from the floor, carefully avoiding the garments that were decidedly more sensitive in nature. He didn't doubt for one second that this kid would kick his ass if she thought that he was overstepping his boundaries with his assistance.

Although, to be really honest, it wasn't his ass that he was worried about her kicking.

"Why are you going to kill your brother?" he asked quietly, and the girl jerked slightly before she glanced over at him warily.

"Because he decided to be an idiot and put one of his stupid little inventions in with the laundry," she muttered irritably before she jerked her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of her backpack. "He made that stupid thing because I told him once that I thought the Snuggles fabric softener teddy bear was creepy. And lo and behold, the little idiot went out and got one of the damned things, and then proceeded to wire it up so that it was like a little robot, all just to creep me out."

Dean favored the girl with an incredulous look as she got up and angrily stuffed her retrieved clothing back into the dryer before he glanced over his shoulder at Sam, who was also giving the kid a look that indicated that he thought she was lying. In their line of work, they had given a lot of bullshit excuses to explain the things that people had seen, but this one definitely took the cake. Seeing as the kid probably knew damn good and well what she was dealing with – at least if her very violent reaction was anything to go by – then there was a good possibility that she was either a hunter, or at least a hunter's kid.

The two Winchesters exchanged knowing looks as the girl started the dryer back up again and headed back over to her seat, aiming a vicious kick at the now slightly squirming backpack before she flopped back down in the chair and returned to reading her book. However, when Sam and Dean heard the threat that she hissed in the general direction of the bag, their suspicions were confirmed.

"Either stop squirming, or I'll do a salt and burn on your fuzzy little ass right now!" the girl snarled softly as she put her foot on top of her backpack and pressed down. The bag let out a small whimper in response and immediately stilled. The girl cocked an eyebrow before she gave a smug little grin and settled back in her chair, although she still kept her foot near the bag.

Dean gave his brother a knowing smile over his shoulder before he went and sat down next to the kid, who tensed up slightly when she noticed him occupying the seat next to her.

"So, your brother likes to mess around with electronics, huh?" he asked conversationally, and the girl briefly glanced over at him before she returned her attention back to her book.

"Yeah, something like that," she muttered offhandedly. "Makes a huge mess all the time when he's dinking around with stuff."

Dean gave the teen a little grin that had charmed Lord only knows how many women out of their socks – and other unmentionables – in the hopes that he could play the good-looking older guy just trying to be friendly. Teenage girls fell for that kind of thing, right?

"So why build a robotic teddy bear?"

The girl stiffened up slightly, a brief flicker of worry crossing over her features, before it was quickly replaced by a neutral mask. She slowly lowered her book, cocked her head slightly to the side, and gave Dean a somewhat feral grin that made the hunter scoot back slightly as she looked him right in the eye.

"I don't know," she stated flatly, although there is a faint hint of warning in her voice. "Why are you so interested?"

"I'm just… you know…" Dean trailed off hesitantly, not knowing what he should say as he realized that he had just dug a very deep hole for himself. The girl gave him a skeptical look before she let out an irritated huff and rolled her eyes upwards. Just when the hunter was about to try and recover what was left of his self-respect, he was interrupted by the sound of the front door to the Laundromat opening, followed by an obnoxiously cheerful accented voice shouting out a name.

"Corey!"

The girl's head jerked up, and she looked over at the door with wide eyes before she grinned widely at the sight of the lanky man standing there. Dean frowned slightly as he followed the kid's gaze, and cocked an eyebrow as he stared at the odd-looking man who was now making his way towards them. The guy was probably in his mid-thirties, had messy brown hair that had been gelled to stick up in almost every direction, and was wearing a brown pinstriped suit with black converse tennis shoes.

All in all, a very _unique_ individual.

"Hey Uncle John," the girl – Dean assumed that she was Corey – said as she stood up and gave the man a brief hug before she gestured over at the washing machine. "Sorry, but the laundry's taking me a little longer than expected. I had a problem with one of the dryers."

The man gave a loud sigh as he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his suit jacket and gave Corey a somewhat amused look. "What kind of problem? Mechanical?"

Dean arched an eyebrow upon hearing the man's accent before he glanced over his shoulder at Sam, who merely shrugged in response. The girl was obviously American, so why would her uncle have an English accent?

"Nah, think more along the lines of Danny hiding one of his little inventions in the laundry," Corey said, a meaningful look on her face as she indicated over towards her backpack, which was now squirming around a bit. John frowned slightly, a look of momentary confusion flickering across his face, before something apparently came to him and he grinned broadly at the younger girl.

"Oh!" he exclaimed as he knelt down by the canvas backpack and gently prodded at it while Corey went and removed her last load of clothing from the washing machine and transferred it to the dryer before she fed some quarters into it and turned the device on. "You mean that thing with the… stuff? The little talking thing?"

"You mean the one that you helped him build?" Corey muttered in mock exasperation as she turned around and crossed her arms over her chest. "Yeah, that thing. Thanks a lot for that by the way."

John looked affronted by the accusation as he watched the younger girl start to fold the clothes that she had pulled from the other dryer before everything had blown up in her face, placing each piece of clean laundry neatly inside what looked like a military surplus duffle bag. When he noticed the perplexed stares that he was receiving from the Winchesters, he frowned slightly and moved over to help his niece finish folding the clothes. Soon, the two were talking and joking around like nothing had happened, ignoring the two hunters occupying the washing machine next to them.

Dean noticed that Sam was staring intently at the two, and gave his brother a questioning look. Sam didn't say anything, but he did frown a little as he apparently thought something over before he gave Corey an odd look.

"Hey, have we met you before?" he asked suddenly, and Corey turned around partially so she could look at him before she arched an eyebrow.

"Um, no… I don't think so," she stated dryly before she returned to her folding. "I'm pretty sure that I'd remember meeting Bigfoot."

Sam flushed slightly at the comment, and Dean was forced to turn away and bite down on his hand so he wouldn't burst out laughing. He knew he shouldn't be laughing at his brother, really, he shouldn't… but it was just too funny. And Sam hadn't even gotten the chance to use his infamous puppy-dog eyes on the kid either. So it was fair now, especially since she had shot both of them down when they had tried to get some information on her.

However, every time that Dean looked over at the girl after that, he suddenly found himself on the receiving end of a very dirty look from John. The funny thing was, the guy would stop giving them the stink-eye every time Corey turned around to talk with him. Dean very quickly came to the very sensible conclusion that John was the original hunter in the family – even if his dress sense sucked – and that he wouldn't tolerate them harassing his niece.

Soon enough, all of the laundry was done –even the stuff that had been in the teddy-bear dryer – and Corey was about to sling the squirming backpack over her shoulder before John expertly snagged it out of her hands.

"I'll carry that," he told her cheerfully, and Corey gave him a mildly exasperated look before she grinned and shook her head.

"Fine," she said with a smirk as she grabbed the now-full and zipped-up duffle bag and shouldered it. "You have fun with that."

The unwilling occupant of the backpack chose that precise moment to start squirming around, earning an amused snort from Corey as John rolled his eyes upwards before he expertly drove his elbow back into the bag. A muffled squeal emerged from within the bag, and it immediately stopped wiggling. John gave the younger girl a look as she started to snicker, making her give him an innocent grin as she shifted her own non-moving back so she could get a better grip on the strap.

"You insisted," she told him cheerfully before she headed for the door. John looked like he desperately wanted to roll his eyes at the girl's comment, but instead settled for letting out a soft sigh instead.

"Yes, I did," he admitted reluctantly. "But still…"

Dean and Sam both watched cautiously as the two left the Laundromat, with Corey joking and teasing her uncle as the older man smiled and occasionally commented upon her remarks as they walked out the door. The brothers waited until the two were well out of sight before Sam glanced over at his older sibling.

"Well, that was weird," he quipped dryly, earning a wry chuckle from Dean as he reached out and lightly socked the taller man in the shoulder.

"The story of our lives, man," he muttered with a sigh as ran a hand over his hair. Sam was silent for a few moments, a thoughtful frown on his face, before he let out a long sigh and stuffed his hand into his pocket.

"Dean, I was being serious back there," he said suddenly, and the older Winchester looked over at him curiously. "I really do think that I've seen that girl before, but I don't remember where."

"Was she some kind of creeping fugly?"

Sam gave his brother an annoyed look in response. "No, she wasn't. I think we helped her."

"Oh." There was a long stretch of silence before Dean looked back out the front window, an odd expression in his green eyes as he allowed his gaze to wander over to the spot where he had last seen Corey and her uncle. "I wonder ..."

* * *

"Yeouch! That little fragger just bit me!" Corey yelped as she hurriedly withdrew her injured hand from the tangle of flannel that she had been struggling to remove the Snuggles bear from and cradled it up against her chest, glaring at the stuffed toy angrily. "And how in the heck does it even have teeth to begin with?"

The Doctor looked up from the toolbox that he was currently digging around in, his glasses –brainy specs as he called them – sliding down his nose slightly as he watched the girl clench her hand into a tight fist and wallop the Snuggles bear on the head as hard as she could, temporarily stunning it.

"It's a Gorgnigian Flatch," he told her once Corey had managed to extract the stuffed toy from her overshirt and held it face-down on the TARDIS console with one hand as she tossed her shirt out of damage range, flinching slightly when it somehow managed to grow a set of claws and start swiping away at her hand before she grabbed hold of both of its fuzzy paws with her free hand. "They usually look like little blobs of marmalade, except with eyes, except when they're trying to invade somewhere. Then they'll take on the form of whatever they think will terrify the planet's inhabitants into submission."

Corey looked up at the Doctor with wide eyes before she stared back down at the Gorgnigian Flatch that she was currently restraining, pointedly ignoring the muffled curses and death threats that were being snarled into the metal tray that she was pressing it down into. There were just some times when the TARDIS shouldn't bother translating what something was saying, because the tone was all that was needed. An eyebrow arched up incredulously, and was soon followed by its fellow as the teen gave the stuffed toy that she was holding down a disbelieving look.

"_This_… is supposed to terrify us into submission?" she finally asked, the tone of her voice holding an unspoken 'you have _got_ to be joking' as she cocked her head to the side slightly, gray eyes narrowing in sardonic confusion. "Dude, I could punt this little pain in my butt across the room, easy. Scratch that, I did earlier when I was trying to catch him. And half the population of the United States could squash his furry little ass just by sitting down on him."

"I never said that they were all that bright," the Doctor clarified as he finally found what he had been looking for, and straightened up with a satisfied 'ah-hah!' while brandishing something that looked suspiciously like an iPod that had been cannibalized by something that ate plastic and then welded together with a tea strainer. "Sometimes they get the wrong impression from something, or they just don't think. What's terrifying to them is often amusing to other species. And, they're easily gotten rid of."

With that, the Doctor pointed his tea-Pod thing at the Gorgnigian Flatch and pressed the button. For a moment, nothing happened. Corey cocked an eyebrow and gave the older man a disbelieving look, about to open her mouth and offer some kind of sarcastic comment, when the Snuggles bear suddenly let out a low, pained noise. The girl returned her attention to the stuffed toy and looked at it curiously, her expression confused, right before the creature started to shake underneath her hand.

Startled, Corey immediately released it and took several precautionary steps backwards just in time for the Gorgnigian Flatch to turn back into a neon orange gelatinous blob that sat innocently on the metal tray, quivering slightly. It directed a pair of tiny black eyes at the Doctor and Corey, staring at them with its beady gaze, before it opened its mouth to an impossibly wide proportion and made a low noise that sounded suspiciously like someone throwing up. Violently.

And then it exploded.

The teen yelped and managed to duck behind the TARDIS's console before she was hit by any of the splatter, but the Doctor wasn't so lucky. When Corey finally gathered enough courage to peek cautiously over the top of the console, the Doctor was still standing in the exact same spot that he had been before the marmalade blob had gone nova, his hand still outstretched with the device in it, the button pressed flat. And he was covered from head to toe in bright orange goop. In fact, Corey could swear that she could hear the grinding of his teeth from where she was crouched, as well as see the vein twitching noticeably by his temple.

"How can something that small make such a big mess?" she asked hesitantly, and then directed a wary gaze at a lump that lay awkwardly splattered on the now-abandoned tray. "Ew. It looks like radioactive baby puke."

The Doctor didn't say anything for several long moments before he finally let out a long sigh of aggravation. "… it wasn't supposed to do that."

"So I guessed," Corey muttered as she rolled her eyes and got up from her crouched position. "I'm gonna go get a rag so I can get this cleaned up. Or twenty."

"And I'm going to go get changed," the Doctor stated flatly as he stuffed his failed device into the pocket of his suit jacket. "I'll be back… once I get this confounded ooze out of my hair."

Corey looked back long enough to watch the incredibly disgruntled Time Lord leave the control room before she covered her mouth with her hand. The last thing she needed right now was for the Doctor hear her start sniggering like an idiot.

Sometimes, they dealt with the weirdest things.


	3. Chapter 3: Skin

**Far From Over**

**Part Three: Skin**

_St. Louis, 2005_

This was bad.

This was very bad. In fact, words could not even _begin_ to describe how bad this situation was.

Corey felt her breath coming in short, harsh gasps as she ran down the street for all that she was worth, ignoring the burning feeling that permeated the entirety of her lungs as she ducked down yet another alleyway. Fear was gnawing away at her, sapping her very courage as she tried to flee from the thing that was coming after her.

"Corey, c'mon, where are you? I promise it'll only hurt a little bit."

The girl chanced a terrified glance behind her, a chill crawling down her spine at the sound of the Doctor's voice as it echoed around the aged brick buildings. Whatever this thing was, it _looked _just like the Doctor, but its personality was completely different. This thing was evil, psychotic. And it wanted to kill her, preferably taking a long as humanly possible while making her shriek with agony.

So, definitely not the Doctor. If anything, the person talking to her sounded like Barty Crouch Jr. from the fourth Harry Potter movie at his most psychotic.

In other words, he was nuttier than squirrel shit.

"Oh, like hell," she whispered darkly as she ducked into yet another dark alleyway, gray eyes darting about cautiously as she noted every deep shadow, and every possible hiding place. Damn, she'd hit a dead end. She could probably get out though if she hopped the brick wall sealing off the alleyway. "If you think I'm just gonna waltz right up to you and let you kill me, you've got another thing coming buddy. Sorry, so not doing my impression of a lamb walking straight to a slaughter tonight."

With that quiet piece of defiance, the seventeen-year-old scrambled up onto the top of a dumpster and then boosted herself up onto the top of the brick wall, looking around cautiously for a moment to make sure that she hadn't been seen before she hopped down onto the other side. Right now, she needed to find the real Doctor, and then maybe kick the ass of the thing that had tried to take his place. But first, she had to make sure that she didn't get caught. Getting caught by this thing was definitely somewhere up near the very top of her list of things Not To Do.

It was right below dying, and just a little bit above getting bit in the butt by an alien piranha.

Not that she'd find an alien piranha here in Chicago. Maybe in Harry Dresden's version of Chicago, or even the Nevernever, but she wasn't there. This was too bad, because she could definitely use some outside help on this one, and the thought of paging through the phonebook to see if she could call in some reinforcements in the form of Chicago's only publically practicing wizard was starting to look incredibly tempting. It really sucked if she thought about it, especially that fact that Harry Dresden _wasn't real_. Otherwise she'd have called him up and promised him the moon in order to get his help.

Because seriously, how in the hell was she supposed to take down a shapeshifter by herself?

* * *

By the time that she finally found someplace that she could rest and hide for a while, Corey was practically dead from exhaustion as she groggily stumbled into a small diner. She had spent pretty much the entire night playing a murderously demented and non-stop version of hide and go seek with her pursuer, and it had taken its toll. The TARDIS wasn't safe, especially since the fake Doctor had the key, so she couldn't lock him out. Not to mention the fact that the TARDIS was probably the first place that he would look for her too. That meant that she couldn't even go back in order to grab some of her books that might actually help her with the situation.

Sunrise had eventually come, leaving her utterly exhausted and wanting nothing more than for everything to be over. However, she wasn't that lucky, and she had to keep going. She had eventually given up the ghost of fighting off sleep, and had curled up in the corner of the local library for a few hours during the afternoon, figuring that the fake Doctor wouldn't think to look for her there, but she had been tossed out of there at closing time. It was probably the fact that she had fallen asleep while propped up against one of the shelves, and that it was almost a quarter after eight when the security guard had found her.

Somehow, Corey managed to form the coherent thought that involved her taking a seat in a small booth in the corner of the diner, with the high sides and back shielding her from view from the window. Right now, she needed to stay one step ahead of the shifter, and that meant staying free and out of sight. Unfortunately, that also meant that she couldn't get any sleep until she found the Doctor.

The teen let out a low groan of pure frustration as she placed her arms down on the table in front of her and let her head fall down on top of them, silently cursing the being that had taken her friend's place. She didn't even know when the Doctor had been replaced! All she had to go on was the fact that he had started acting weird sometime in the middle of the day yesterday, right around when they had starting poking around that one murder scene where the guy had killed his wife. Well, violently tortured to death might be a better description, especially considering all of the blood that had been all over the place.

And even then, that still wasn't much use. It wasn't like someone was just going to waltz up to her and tell her that they had all of the answers to her problem.

"Damn!" Corey growled as she swiftly smacked her forehead once against the stained surface of the table, ignoring the odd looks that she received from the other customers at her actions. She was so tired she couldn't even think straight, much less come up with a decent plan to deal with the shifter!

The girl was so deeply involved in her thoughts, as well as doing her level best not to fall asleep, that it took her a little while to notice that someone was standing next to the table she was occupying. Figuring that it was one of the servers, Corey managed to mutter out her order without actually lifting up her head.

"A BLT with the biggest bloody glass of Coke or Mountain Dew you have, please," she said flatly, not even bothering to open her eyes. An amused cough was the response to her statement, and she could almost feel the smirk that radiated from the person standing there.

"Sorry kid, but I'm not here to take any orders," a male voice said sarcastically. Corey stiffened up almost immediately, and she slowly raised her head to look up at the policeman that was standing next to her table. Great, just what she needed. More trouble.

"Can I help you?" she asked dryly, fighting to keep the bitter edge out of her voice as she slowly looked the man up and down, grey eyes darting from the holstered gut at his hip to the shiny badge pinned to the front of his navy uniform. Why in the heck was a beat cop bothering her? She hadn't even been in the diner for ten minutes, so there was no way she had managed to offend someone.

Apparently, it was going to be just one of those days.

"Yeah, do you know what time it is?" There was a slight edge to his tone, one that immediately set her on guard. Okay, there was no way this guy had picked her out of all the people in there just to ask the time. Something was definitely up.

Corey frowned slightly, and then cast an obligatory glance down at the sports watch strapped to her right wrist.

"It's about nine thirty."

Apparently that was the wrong answer, seeing as the cop's smile turned downright malicious at her words.

"And don't you have somewhere to be right now?"

Corey gave the older man a look that plainly told him that she could care less about where he thought she should be. She was absolutely exhausted, her entire body ached from ducking and dodging all night, and she was cranky. She was in no mood to play games with some smartass cop who thought that he was being clever.

"Look, either get to the bloody point, or leave me alone," the girl growled as she gave the policeman a dirty glare. "I just want to get something to eat."

Whatever she had been expecting him to do in response, it certainly hadn't been for him to grab her by the back of her short-sleeved denim overshirt and roughly haul her up to her feet. Corey let out a startled yelp as she attempted to twist free from the man's grasp, only to have him grab her arm and twist it behind her back painfully as he forced her out of the booth.

"My point is that we have a very strict curfew policy here," he retorted scathingly as he started to frog-march Corey over towards the front door, pointedly ignoring the stunned gasps and stares that came from the other patrons of the diner as he forced the teen towards the door. "I gave you your chance to get going, and you blew it. Guess who gets to deal with your parents now? I bet you anything that they won't be very happy to find out that their daughter was sneaking around behind their backs and sneaking out."

Corey didn't say anything as she glared daggers at the floor, although a furious, wordless snarl somehow managed to make its way from her throat as she tensed up noticeably. She hated bullies with a passion, and this guy was doing nothing more than feeding his own ego. And the fact that he was publically humiliating her on top of it only pissed her off even more.

"First of all, I'm seventeen, you asshole," she hissed venomously. "And second, I'm a fucking college student. Now let me go."

"Yeah right, kid. And I'm Madonna," was the disbelieving reply as the man shoved her forward roughly. There was an almost audible snap as the last strands of Corey's patience finally gave way, and she just let her training take over from there.

Judo lessons: forty dollars. Flipping an asshole cop over your shoulder and making him land flat on his back? Priceless.

* * *

Police stations sucked.

It was an almost universal truth, seeing as most of them smelled something akin to the men's locker room at the local gym. Actually, that was being nice. They smelled like sweat, vomit, and god only knows what else, and the creepiest people sat around, waiting to be booked for whatever crimes they had committed.

Or, in her case, watching the chief of police rip the beat cop who had been so eager to rough her up a new one.

Corey carefully kept her face set in a neutral mask as she watched the older man rant and rave at the beat cop who had brought her in only twenty minutes earlier, claiming that she had 'resisted arrest'. Unfortunately for him, several people from the diner who had been appalled by his treatment of her had called ahead and informed his supervisor of what had happened. The poor bastard hadn't even had time to tell his boss _his_ version of what had happened before the older man had started to verbally rip him to pieces.

Well, he had waited long enough to demand that Corey show him her ID. And she had. Her student ID from the University of Wisconsin.

To say that the shit had hit the fan after that would be a serious understatement.

"You're lucky that you still have your badge, Erickson! Assaulting a minor just because she didn't know what the hell you were talking about? We don't do that! And, to make things worse, you ignored her when she told you that she was a college student! Right now, you're lucky that all she did was flip you over her shoulder!"

Corey let out a low groan as she buried her face in her hands and slouched down in her seat, desperately wishing that she could be anywhere but there. She still had to hunt down the shifter, find the Doctor, and hopefully get out of wherever the thing's lair was relatively unscathed. Not to mention the fact that her butt had long since lost any feeling in it, probably about an hour or so ago when she had first been brought in.

"I hate my life," she finally muttered as she straightened up with an aggravated sigh and reached up to rub the back of her neck. A low chuckle answered her somewhat annoyed comment, and she glanced over to see a very tall man clad in a jeans and a brown hoodie standing next to the bench she was perched on.

"I have days like that too," he offered with a slightly encouraging grin, and Corey raised an eyebrow slightly before she gave him a hesitant smile in return. The man seemed to take this as an invitation, and he slowly sank down onto the hard wooden slats next to her, reaching up to run a hand through his messy brown hair, obviously at a loss of what to say next. The girl watched him warily for a moment before she decided that he'd have to be insane to pull something stupid in a police station.

His lanky ass would probably be flat on the floor with about five full-grown men sitting on top of him before she could yell 'pervert'.

"You mean you have days when you get dragged somewhere by some jerk for no good reason?" Corey asked dryly as she straightened up and rubbed at the bridge of her nose, idly wishing for some painkillers to help ward off the sleep-deprivation-induced migraine that was currently trying to take up residence within her skull. Pulling an all-nighter was never fun, but to do it and attempt to function in a reasonably normal manner during the next day was just plain stupid.

"Unfortunately, I do," the man said dryly as he gave Corey an odd look. "Aren't you a little young to have days like that?"

"Nope." It was now official: the Doctor was rubbing off on her in more ways than one. She had sounded just like him when she had said that, popping the 'p' and everything.

It was right about then that everything hit her. Corey's eyes widened, and her breath started to come in short, panicked gasps as she wrapped her arms around herself in a self-hug and hunched over slightly, her hair falling over her shoulders to form a screen between her and everyone else in the room. She was all alone here. There was absolutely no one that she could turn to for help, and she didn't have access to the supplies or information that she needed to defeat the shifter.

She was completely and utterly screwed.

"Hey, kid, you okay?" There was a hint of worry in the man's voice as a large hand was placed on her shoulder, and Corey felt the last shreds of her self-control slip as she buried her face in her hands. Tired and stressed was never a good combination with her.

"No, no I'm not," she growled out through tightly gritted teeth as she clenched her eyes shut, trying desperately to will back the sudden wave of nausea that had followed her realization. "Right now, I'm stuck in a strange city with absolutely no way of getting back, the friend I was with just disappeared, and I haven't slept yet because I was playing 'Run like hell or die' with the bastard who grabbed my friend. And that isn't even the half of it." Tears of shame and frustration welled up in her eyes as she babbled. Why was she telling this guy this? It wasn't like he could actually help. "I'm so screwed."

There was a long stretch of silence from the man, and Corey sucked in a deep breath as she attempted to regain some semblance of self-control before she straightened up. She kept her gaze aimed at the floor as she braced her hands against her legs and sat there. Finally, the man spoke, and when he did it wasn't something that the girl expected to hear.

"Kid, just how old are you?" he asked in a politely curious tone. Corey frowned slightly before she looked over at the man and locked her eyes on his.

"I'm seventeen, and my name isn't kid," she began tersely, keeping her gray eyes locked on his slightly startled green ones. "It's Corey."

He appeared thoughtful for a moment before he glanced over at the shouting police chief and smirked dryly. "Well, I guess that it's been the day for wrongful arrests."

Before the girl could say anything, the man stood up and walked over towards the two policemen. Within five minutes, Corey had been told that she was free to go, and had been all but tossed out of the police station, followed shortly by a very smug and satisfied man.

"Hey, you'll be okay now?" he asked kindly. She offered him a shit-eating grin in response, although she definitely did not feel half as cocky as she acted.

"Yeah." And before he could say anything further, she darted off, making her way back to the TARDIS. She really didn't want to, but she needed to grab some things. Hopefully, if she was careful enough, she wouldn't get caught by the fake Doctor.

* * *

Corey grimaced as she slowly walked down the dank, and quite frankly, putrid-smelling sewer, the hair along the back of her neck prickling uncomfortably with every step as she held onto her large black MagLite with a white-knuckled grip. In all honesty, she hadn't exactly expected to be able to get down into the sewers to begin with, but she had. All it had required was a crowbar, and a great deal of stubborn determination.

Well, that, and the fact that she had managed to find a manhole cover in a deserted alley so someone didn't call the cops on her.

Said crowbar – it was a fairly small one – was now sticking slightly out of the top of her backpack, which was loaded up with a few other odds and ends that she figured that she might need if she ran into the shifter again. She honestly didn't know why the Doctor had a whole box of fireworks from 1974 in his little workroom, but right now she wasn't going to complain about it. Add in a lighter, a big can of Mace, a container of lighter fluid, and a buck knife that had belonged to her dad and she had a crude but effective rescue kit ready to go.

The girl shuddered slightly as something skittered past her just outside of the reach of her flashlight, biting down on her lip in an attempt to keep back the yelp that threatened to emerge. Okay, it was now official; sewers were creepy as hell, and she was never going into another one ever again if she could avoid it.

Which meant, knowing her and the Doctor's luck, she'd be ankle-deep in raw sewage sometime next week.

A noise up ahead caught her attention, and Corey flinched as she hastily shut off the flashlight, pressing her back up against the damp wall of the sewer as she gripped the strong metal casing of her Maglite tightly. If whoever was coming down the tunnel towards her tried to grab her, they'd definitely be regretting it shortly. The police used Maglites when they had to go in somewhere dark for a reason. Getting bashed upside the head with a metal flashlight usually tended to _hurt_.

A dark shape passed in front of her, and Corey silently cursed the fact that her night vision hadn't had time to kick in yet. Clutching the hefty flashlight close to her chest, the girl pressed herself up against the damp brickwork behind her even further, and held her breath. The person paused in front of where she was trying to hide, and then passed on by. Corey relaxed visibly, although she managed to hold back the sigh of relief that followed her actions.

Her silence was broken shortly after that when the figure spun around and roughly grabbed her by the front of her overshirt, easily dragging her out from her hiding spot. Corey swore loudly in response as she tried to lash out at her assailant, quickly cycling through her entire repertoire of profane suggestions in multiple languages. If the Doctor knew that she'd heard him on any of the few times he'd actually swore, he would probably have a heart attack.

"You son of a- let me go!" she shrieked as she managed to land a kick to the man's shin, resulting in some impressive cursing from his end. "Vitun kusipää! Ila jaheem ma'ik!"

This rather obscene statement was swiftly followed by a strike to the forearm with the Maglite, which resulted in Corey being unceremoniously dropped flat on her ass. The girl managed to skid away from the man by a few feet before she aimed the flashlight upwards and flicked it on, training the intense beam of light directly on her attacker's face.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, shine that somewhere else, will ya?" the man griped as he threw up one arm in front of his face in order to shield his eyes from the light. "Gonna make me go blind."

Corey ignored his request as she stood up and kept the bright beam of light aimed at the man's face, her entire body tense as she backed away from the taller man.

"Where is he, you bastard?" she growled. "Where's the Doctor? Because I'm telling you right now, you freaky-eyed son of a bitch, if you've given him so much as a paper cut, I will break your arm off and beat you to death with it before I ram it so far up your ass that you'll be able to flip people off with your mouth!"

To Corey's complete and total surprise, the man started laughing as he suddenly lowered his arms. Before the girl could react, she was lying flat on her back with her own flashlight being aimed into her eyes, a heavy foot encased in a leather work boot pressed down on her chest to keep her pinned to the filthy floor of the sewer. Profanities flew from her mouth as she struggled as hard as she could to dislodge her attacker, fear and desperation lending her strength even as a never ending stream of panicked thoughts raced though Corey's mind.

The shifter was going to kill her right here and now. She'd never be able to help the Doctor, and when he found her he'd blame himself-

"What the-?" the man suddenly said as he removed his boot from Corey's chest before he reached down and grabbed the front of both of her shirts, effortlessly hauling her up to her feet. "You're just a kid."

The girl squinted as she tried to see the man's face behind the beam of light, but no dice. If the tone of his voice was any indication, he was shocked.

"Am not," she retorted as she tried to back away, only to be pulled up short by the man's firm grip on her shirts.

"Dude, you're like what, thirteen? You're a kid."

If looks could kill, then this joker would have been a pile of ash on the floor of the tunnel.

"I'm seventeen, genius."

"So you say."

"Well maybe you just suck at guessing people's ages."

The man paused for a second before he chuckled at Corey's terse remark and let her go. She immediately backed up a few feet and eyed the man warily. There was no way that she was going to let him catch her off guard again. The man seemed to guess the reason behind her caution, because he suddenly tossed Corey's Maglite over to her, causing her to fumble slightly before she caught it.

"So, what's a kid like you doing in the sewers?" the man asked nonchalantly. Corey frowned as she slowly tilted her head to the side, before she shook her head and decided to go out on a limb. This guy didn't look or act like the shifter, and there was a definite lack of the lens flare in his eyes that she had seen earlier on the fake Doctor. She was probably safe, at least for now.

"I'm looking for my uncle," she said as she adjusted her grip on her flashlight, ready to bolt if necessary. Braden had often made the comment that she could run faster than the zombies if _28 Weeks Later_ when she wanted too. Quite honestly, Corey preferred to be compared to a scared cat.

She _hated_ horror movies.

The guy in front of her made an odd little face that indicated that he was slightly weirded out. "Your uncle lives in the sewers?"

"No. He got _grabbed_ by some silver-eyed nutso who lives in the sewers," Corey retorted tersely as she rolled her eyes. "I came down here to find him. And hopefully, bash the stupid jackass who grabbed him in the face."

A considering look crossed the older man's face as he glanced over at her.

"Kid, do you even know what you're up against?" he finally asked cautiously. Corey arched an eyebrow before she allowed herself to give him a humorless smirk.

"Do _you_ know?" she retorted smugly before she pulled away from the man and headed off in the direction that he had been going. An indignant sputtering noise sounded from behind her, and the girl rolled her eyes as she picked up her pace. There was a nagging hint of familiarity whenever she looked at this guy, but right now that wasn't important. She needed to find the Doctor before something happened to him.

And if this thing was what she thought it was, then that was a very likely possibility.

If she didn't find him soon, then they were both in deep shit. Corey shuddered slightly as she strode down the dim tunnel, ignoring the sound of somebody behind her swearing loudly as they stepped in the pile of discarded bloody skin and whatever else the shifter had left behind when it had changed form. The girl stopped and glanced over her shoulder before she shook her head and moved on, keeping wary gray eyes fixed on the filthy floor of the sewer so she wouldn't step in any 'surprises' herself. Somehow, she had managed to avoid that delightful experience through sheer dumb luck, but she wouldn't put it past the irony gods for it to happen again.

A dim light up ahead caught her attention, and Corey skidded to a halt before she went and pressed herself up against the wall of the sewer once again. The Maglite was turned off, and the girl held her breath as she listened intently for any sign that the shifter was in the room ahead. She crept up towards the odd little room in the middle of the sewers slowly, making sure that she stayed out of sight until she could get a good glimpse of the room when she peered around the corner. All that she heard were a few rustling sounds, sounds that were not out of place for rats to be nosing around in something. It was at that moment that a horrible thought hit her, and it was all Corey could do not to either scream, or throw up.

_Rats ate human flesh._

The teen was forced to bite down on her hand to suppress the strangled whimper that crept out of her throat, and she screwed her eyes shut as she banged the back of her head against the filthy brickwork behind her as hard as she could. The pain helped to clear her head, to force away all of the stomach-churning scenarios that came to mind, as she clenched her jaw determinedly.

She would not gag, she would not cry, she would not lose it, not here, not now. She was seventeen years old for God's sake! After everything that she had seen in her life, she would not allow the thought that someone she cared for _might_ be dead stop her, not when she could actually do something to help.

With that thought, Corey flung herself away from the wall and stepped out into the dim light in the makeshift lair, even as a work-roughened hand reached out to prevent her from doing so.

"Doctor?" she called out as she gripped her flashlight tightly. If anything tried to jump out at her, she was going to go down swinging. One thing was definitely certain; the bastard would be walking away with one hell of a concussion once she was through with him.

A hand grabbed her by the back of the short-sleeved denim overshirt that she was wearing and pulled her up short, and the teen swore loudly as she whirled around to face her attacker, wielding her Maglite like a club. The guy that had grabbed her earlier pulled back in obvious surprise, his green eyes widening slightly, before he easily reached up and caught the end of the flashlight before it had an up-close and personal meeting with his face.

"Whoa there, easy Tiger," he said with a wary chuckle as he let go of the end of the flashlight. "That could have been my face." He then winced as he shook out his abused hand. "You got quite a swing there."

"That's because I thought you were the shifter," Corey growled irritably as she took a step back so there was some space between them. "Don't sneak up on me like that, dumbass."

There was a scoffing noise from the man as he rolled his eyes, and Corey had to fight the very insistent urge to bury her fist in his face.

"I had it under control," he said confidently. Corey cocked a disbelieving eyebrow as she crossed her arms over her chest before she shook her head and sighed.

"Right," she drawled sarcastically as she edged away from the man, "well, next time you might not be quick enough."

"Corey, is that you?" a familiar voice asked suddenly, and the teen froze before she slowly turned around in her spot, carefully scanning her surroundings for a familiar thatch of messy brown hair. A frown momentarily crossed her face as the nagging sense of familiarity hit her once again, before she shook her head and shoved it aside.

"Doctor?"

There was a hint of movement off to the side, and Corey immediately bolted for it, slipping on something that was lying on the floor of the sewer and pinwheeling her arms for a moment before she regained her balance and didn't fall flat on her face. She ignored the other man's protests as she righted herself and shoved her way past a stack of cardboard boxes to where the Doctor's voice was coming from. When she saw the Doctor, she couldn't stop the relieved laughter that started to bubble up in her throat as she stared at him. He was tied rather firmly to a BTS chair, and he was clad solely in the t-shirt that he almost always wore underneath one of his dress shirts, and boxers.

He also looked far less than pleased with the situation.

"What took you so long?" he grumbled as he shifted uncomfortably in his spot. Corey flashed him a slightly teasing grin as she took off her backpack and set down on the filthy ground before she started to dig around in it for the knife that she had brought.

"Sorry. I kind of had to ditch Barty Crouch Jr. before I could come get you," she explained as she wrapped her fingers around the hilt of the buck knife and pulled it out of her bag. She quickly set about slicing through the ropes, muttering a series of less than flattering sentiments aimed towards the shifter as she did so.

"Did he hurt you?"

Corey fell silent for a moment before she shook her head.

"Nah. I managed to outrun him before he could do anything," she admitted with a shrug of forced nonchalance. She kept her face down as she worked on the ropes, trying to ignore the penetrating stare that the Doctor was giving her as she sawed on the rough fibers.

"Corey."

That one word somehow carried a multitude of meanings, the strongest one being 'tell me the truth before I drag it out of you'. She looked up at her friend and grinned sheepishly before she silently indicated to the left leg of her jeans, where a raw-looking knee poked through the freshly-torn hole in the denim.

"Slipped and fell when I was running from him," Corey admitted reluctantly as she cut through the last of the ropes, and the Doctor quickly got to his feet, letting out a soft hiss of pain as circulation returned to his limbs. "Hurt like hell, but I really didn't want to end up in a body bag at the local morgue, so I kind of had to keep going."

The Doctor arched a somewhat disbelieving eyebrow as he looked at the girl, and he quickly grabbed her by the wrist before he gently turned her hand over. A colorful assortment of shallow cuts, asphalt-lined scrapes, and even a blister slowly welling up at the base of her thumb, greeted his scrutiny. Corey winced slightly as the Time Lord carefully prodded one of the nastier-looking cuts, a dark look on his face slowly spreading.

"I'm going to assume that the rest of you is in similar condition," he finally said in a purposefully neutral tone as he released her hand, and Corey realized for the first time that night just how much everything hurt. In all honesty, she was surprised that she had managed to keep going as long as she had.

Wordlessly, she nodded in agreement, and the Doctor sighed as he reached up and dragged a hand through his already wild-looking hair before he reached out and gently pulled her into a firm hug.

"I'm glad that you're alright," he said gruffly as he released her and ruffled her hair gently. "Now let's leave."

Before Corey could do anything other than manage an inarticulate 'huh?' in response to the question, another voice broke the oppressive silence of the sewers.

"Kid? Hey, kid, are you okay back there? " Footsteps slowly approached the corner that they were somewhat concealed in, hesitating cautiously every so often. "Did you find something?" A soft curse when no one answered. "If you're back there, you silver-eyed son of a bitch, I swear to god I'll start shooting and won't stop until you let her go."

The Doctor frowned as he looked down at Corey, who shrugged and gave him a somewhat sheepish grin. "Um, he followed me home?"

"That's not funny."

The man who had followed her through the sewers suddenly poked his head around the corner of the stack of cardboard boxes concealing them, and relaxed marginally when he saw the Doctor holding Corey in a protective grip. One thing she noticed though, was the fact that he never relaxed entirely, somehow managing to stay alert the entire time.

"So, you're the uncle, huh?" he said carefully as he looked at the Doctor, who cocked an eyebrow in response. Corey gave a nervous chuckle as she rubbed the back of her neck, and blinked as her world suddenly tilted wildly.

For one moment, she thought that she was going to fall over, and she somehow managed to regain her balance even as the Doctor reached out to steady her. Judging from the startled look on the Time Lord's face, the distortion of her vision had been noticeable.

"Corey," he began carefully even as he kept a tight grip on her forearms, a wary look in his brown eyes, "are you alright?"

The girl opened her mouth to respond, trying to look her friend in the eyes even as her vision started to dissolve into a haze of gray, and her balance wavered again. Fortunately, the Doctor was still holding on to her, so he managed to keep her from tilting over even as a loud buzzing noise filled her ears. Corey stood there for a few more seconds, her gray eyes almost impossibly wide on her pale face as she tried to see past the gray haze clouding her vision, listing slightly to the side, before her eyes rolled up into the back of her head and the girl went limp like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Somehow, the Doctor managed to catch her before she hit the filthy floor of the sewer, pulling the teen close to his chest even as the other man darted in to help.

"Geez!" the man hissed as he helped steady Corey's limp form, green eyes flashing with barely-hidden concern, before he looked over at the Doctor. "Can't say that I expected that."

"I know I didn't," the Doctor muttered as he let out a short sigh. The man cocked an eyebrow before he let out a strained laugh, reaching up to drag his fingers through the short bristle of light brown hair on his head as he did so.

"So, does she do this kind of thing often?" he asked wryly. The Doctor shot the other man a stern look before he frowned.

"No." He then peered closely at the unconscious girl, and let out an exasperated sigh. "She passed out from exhaustion." The Time Lord shook his head as he gently ran a hand over the girls' hair, pausing only to glance over at the younger man who was staring at him intently. "She's stubborn. Won't stop until either I make her stop, or she passes out."

The man chuckled softly in response as he gently supported Corey's limp form, giving the Doctor an opportunity to pull on his clothes while muttering a highly offended diatribe about shape-shifters and the stealing of his personal effects under his breath.

"Tough kid," he offered with a faint grin, and shrugged slightly when the Doctor looked over at him, shrugging on his suit jacket. "I have a little brother – he does the same kind of thing. But your niece, dude, nothing was gonna stop her until she found you."

The Doctor gave the younger man a penetrating stare in response to his comment before he gently removed Corey from his grasp, and hoisted her up into a carrying position with a grunt. He turned around to leave, pausing only long enough to collect Corey's backpack and flashlight, before he looked back at the human who had followed his charge into the sewers.

"By the way, there's a young lady down here as well," he pointed out, jerking his head over in the direction of where the girl in question was tied up. "I believe that she's in need of some help."

At that Dean Winchester let fly a loud curse as he turned around to deal with the other captive, and the Doctor used that opportunity to leave the area unnoticed. He would come back later, once Corey wasn't indisposed, and deal with the creature himself. Normally he wouldn't have bothered to get involved, but the shape-shifter had made a very fatal mistake when it had attempted to pose as him earlier.

It had threatened Corey.

He wasn't called the Oncoming Storm for nothing. Whatever reason why the shape-shifter had tried to murder his companion, it didn't matter. He wasn't going to give it a chance to try again.


	4. Chapter 4: Trickster

"I don't mean to cast aspersions on a dead guy, but uh Mr. Morality? He brought a lot of girls up here. Got more ass than a toilet seat." – Gabriel, _Tall Tales_

**Far From Over**

**Part Four: Trickster**

_Springfield, Ohio 2007_

It was a quiet little university town, with the typical population consisting of students, faculty, and business owners. However, in a small bar in this unassuming little town, two people were engaging in a conversation that was far from normal.

There were two men sitting at a high-top table in the bar. One of them, a rather depressed-looking college student, was staring steadily at the trio of shot glasses lined up in front of him, each one filled up to the brim with some rather potent-smelling tequila. The other was an older man with messy brown hair that stuck up all over the place, probably somewhere in his early to mid-thirties, wearing a blue suit with red pinstripes, red high-top Converse sneakers, and a long brown duster that the wearer – were anyone to ask him – would stubbornly insist was given to him by Janice Joplin.

The older man gave the college student a long look before he finally spoke, pointedly ignoring all of the noise surrounding them.

"So, what happened, Curtis?"

The younger man shuddered visibly as he picked up one of the shot glasses line up in front of him.

"You won't believe me. Nobody does," he croaked as he stared at the yellowish depths of the alcohol before he downed the shot of tequila in one go. The man – who usually went by the moniker of 'the Doctor' – leaned back in his seat and stared steadily at Curtis.

"You'd be surprised at what I believe in," he said mildly. Curtis looked up suddenly from his avid study of the wooden tabletop, his eyes wide with a slightly wild look in them before he went and jabbed a finger at the Doctor.

"I'm tellin' you the same thing I told those reporters: I do _not_ want this in the papers," he insisted fervently, a slight slur to his words indicating that these shots were not his first for the day, nor would they be his last. The Doctor looked surprised for a moment, briefly contemplating the identity of the reporters that the already inebriated man mentioned, and then dismissed that subject entirely. He wasn't here to find out about tabloid reporters.

"Off the record," he told Curtis reassuringly. The man fell silent for several moments, and the Doctor briefly wondered if his questioning had somehow traumatized the human more than he already was. That line of thought quickly evaporated as Curtis slowly began to relay his experience, halting unsteadily every so often.

"I ah blacked out when they picked me up, I lost time, and… when I woke up, I didn't know where I was."

"Then what?"

"They did… tests on me." Somehow, Curtis managed to keep looking down at the table top while he spoke before he downed another shot glass full of tequila. "They um… they _probed_ me."

For a single moment, a look of pure outrage crossed the Doctor's face at the man's words, before he somehow managed to hide it. He didn't trust himself to speak for a few seconds as he processed this particular piece of information while he tried to keep his temper under control. "They probed you?"

"Yeah, they probed me. And again, and again, and again, and…" Curtis paused long enough to seize another glass of liquor before he swallowed it in a single gulp. "And again and again and again, and then one more time."

The Doctor frowned as he went over what the implications of the man's statement were, and immediately decided that he didn't like them at all.

"Oh."

"And that's not even the worst of it."

The Doctor looked up at Curtis, wincing slightly as he smelled the raw stench of alcohol on the college student's breath. This wasn't the first time that he'd seen a human take an encounter with an alien badly, but that didn't mean that he had to like it. Surely there was a better way for one to deal with trauma than drinking oneself into a stupor?

"What else did they do?"

Curtis paused, apparently gathering up his courage for the final blow to his pride.

"They made me… slow dance."

* * *

Corey Matthews blinked as she stared up at the Doctor from her spot where she was lying sprawled on the couch in the TARDIS library, a look of complete and total confusion on her face.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. You're shitting me, right?" she finally asked incredulously as she sat up. The Doctor frowned in response as he sank down into a seat nearby, looking understandably frustrated.

"Unfortunately, no, I'm not," the Time Lord said wearily before he shook his head, reaching up to massage the bridge of his nose as he did so. "But I know Ferulians. They would never do something like that. There were some problems with some adolescents abducting humans and playing on their fears in the 60's and 70's, but they never actually _probed_ them." An uncertain look crossed the man's face as he sighed. "Well, there were a few cases… but still. And the idea of them _slow dancing_ with an abductee… its absolutely preposterous! A Ferulian has two left feet. They can't dance, not even if they tried!"

Corey frowned as she glanced down at the book that she had been reading, _Fool Moon_, and then snapped it closed before she set it down on the cushions next to her and sat up.

"Ordinarily, I'd say that this guy was screwing with you, but," she hesitated for a moment as she thought about something before she dismissed it with a shake of her head. "It just sounds a little too… _weird_, even for us. People don't just make stuff up like that."

The Doctor nodded in agreement before he let out a frustrated sigh. "I agree. This Curtis boy was honestly and truly traumatized from his experience, so something did happen to him. The question is, what?"

Corey shrugged in response, and the older man let out yet another sigh as he leaned back in his chair, his eyes sliding shut as he allowed the back of his head to impact with the chair cushion. The girl watched the Doctor as he started to mutter things under his breath, trying to untwist the incredibly skewed tangle of logic from the problem at hand.

That was about when Corey decided to make herself scarce. If she hung around for too long, the Doctor would start bouncing ideas off of her, and then he would get frustrated because she wouldn't have a clue about what in the hell he was talking about. The girl shook her head as she strode down the hallway leading to her room, her book still held tightly in one hand. Two hours ago, things hadn't been half as complicated.

The TARDIS had landed in some little university town somewhere out in the American Midwest in 2007, and the Doctor had gleefully seized the chance to explore. For some reason, the TARDIS seemed to be going to the United States more often than it did usually, but it didn't seem to bother the Doctor at all. He just cheerfully proclaimed that he hadn't seen as much of the U.S. as he had England, and welcomed the chance to explore the New World.

At least until they had heard about the abduction.

They hadn't even been in town for more than twenty minutes, just out wandering around and seeing the sights, before they had heard the whispers about a local fraternity brother claiming to have been abducted. The Doctor had blanched at the term, but steadily ignored it as he hustled Corey on past the group of whispering college students. He had brushed it off as a mere hoax, quietly telling her that humans were very rarely abducted and experimented on, and the vast majority of the claims were usually rather crudely-executed hoaxes.

But when they saw the big hole out in the lawn in front of one of the buildings, looking far too perfect to have been extracted by human hands, Corey knew that they were in some serious trouble.

She hadn't known that they were in trouble because of some kind of psychic premonition, or anything hokey like that. All it had taken for her to realize that some serious shit was going on was for her look up at the Doctor, and see the almost imperceptible narrowing of his eyes, swiftly accompanied by his lips pressing together tightly. The look that he gave the small crater in the grassy ground, somehow impossibly green for somewhere in Ohio in the middle of February, was the exact same look that he usually reserved for a particularly vexing problem.

Corey had been swiftly escorted back to the TARDIS right after that, and then given the firm instructions for her not to even think about leaving the ship until he had come back. It didn't take a genius to figure out what the Doctor was thinking as he closed and locked the door behind him.

_They had kidnapped and experimented on one college student already. He was only one man, and he couldn't be everywhere at once. What was going to stop them from kidnapping and experimenting on her? _

Of course, anyone who knew Corey at all could testify to the fact that she would not go down easily. Also, she wasn't exactly a college student anymore either. Yeah, she was still seventeen, and aliens weren't exactly people, but still…

In her experience, it didn't really matter what species you were. If you slammed a fist into something's face, or drop-kicked them in the nads, it usually hurt. And it didn't matter if she was dealing with a Quisforth, or a bug-eyed little green man from the planet Zeptron. If someone was suicidal enough to try and abduct her, she was going to go down with her fists swinging.

Once the general feeling of unease and anxiety had faded after the Doctor's departure, boredom decided to rear its ugly head. After a few moments of deliberation, Corey had decided against going exploring – even though she'd been traveling with the Doctor for a while, she still hadn't seen very much of the inside of the TARDIS – and ended up sitting in the library, curled up on the couch with a good book.

Everything after that was history.

"Aliens slow dancing," the girl finally said incredulously with a slight shake of her head as she gently shut the door to her room behind her. Why did that sound so familiar?

The teen shrugged as she approached her bookshelf and slid the novel that she had been reading back into its place. She'd probably remember where she had heard of that before sooner or later, and if she didn't, well, then it probably wasn't important.

Oh, how very wrong she was.

* * *

They had stayed the night in the town, with the Doctor going out and looking for clues on the location of the Ferulians so he could negotiate with them, and hopefully get them to leave without severely traumatizing someone else. He had ordered Corey to stay inside the TARDIS, no matter what, and she had used that opportunity to catch up on some sleep, which she desperately needed. For a guy that was almost nine hundred and fifty years old, the Doctor occasionally forgot that humans needed a hell of a lot more rest than he did.

Corey had just dragged herself out of bed, and was in the process of eating breakfast, when she heard the door to the TARDIS slam shut, followed shortly by the sound of someone swearing loudly as they stalked out of the console room. The girl's eyes widened as she looked up from her cereal; the Doctor pretty much _never_ swore. And judging by the words that he was using, he was really pissed off. The worst words that she had ever heard him use before were 'damn' and 'shit', well, except for the ones that were in languages that she didn't know.

She didn't know what a 'cranak pel casacree salvak' was, but she was pretty sure that it wasn't exactly a compliment.

Quickly, Corey got out of her seat and padded over towards where all of the swearing – well, maybe not swearing, but definitely some very creative, and offensive phrases – was coming from. The Doctor acting seriously out of character was always a cause for concern.

"Doctor?" she began cautiously, getting ready to duck if need be. The last time she'd heard someone that mad, Braden's ex-girlfriend had shown up in front of their house to flaunt her new arm-candy while she had been out helping Braden change the fan belt on his truck. Needless to say, tools had gone flying that day. "Are you okay?"

Before she could reach the door to the room and peer inside to see what was wrong, it was unceremoniously slammed shut right in her face.

"Go away!" the Doctor snarled tersely from the other side of the door. "This doesn't concern you!"

Corey recoiled slightly as she stared at the door, her eyes wide as her jaw fell open in shock. What in the _hell_ had gotten into him?

"Okay, what died and crawled up _your_ ass?" she demanded as she slammed the palm of her hand against the door once just to let her friend know that she was not a happy camper. "All I did was ask if you were okay! Shit, no need to bite my head off."

"I didn't bite your head off. I just want to be left alone!"

Corey scowled in response, clenching her hands tightly as she glared at the door. "Look, just chill out, okay? All I wanted to know was if something had happened. The fact that you came storming in while swearing like a sailor isn't normal. Last time I checked, I was one the one with a foul mouth, not you."

An awkward silence hung in the air for a few seconds before it was punctuated by the sound of someone slamming what sounded like a book down on the table in the room.

"I'm _fine_!" the Doctor snapped, and it was at that moment that Corey noticed that his voice sounded a little different. It didn't exactly sound like an adult's voice. To be honest, it sounded more like it belonged to someone her age. Or maybe it was just the acoustics of the room. The TARDIS was kind of weird with things like that. "You don't need to-" There was a loud crash in the room, followed by a frustrated groan, as well as the very familiar sound of someone's skull meeting a table of some kind. "Bugger."

Corey cocked an eyebrow and frowned before she shook her head and sighed. It looked like they were going to have to do this one the hard way. With that thought, she turned around and headed for her room. About two minutes later, she returned with a handful of paper clips, and a flashlight.

"Great. Time for my first course in Lockpicking 101," she muttered sarcastically as she knelt down while she set the paper clips and flashlight down on the floor next to her. Quickly, she unbent one of the clips before she set to work on the door. This was going to be just loads of fun. She didn't even know _how_ to pick a lock.

Fortunately for her, the TARDIS decided to intervene before things got nasty. Before Corey could even stick the first improvised lock pick into the door, it unlocked right before her eyes and swung wide open. The girl didn't even have time to offer her thanks to the machine before she caught sight of the sole occupant in the room.

A lanky teenage boy around sixteen or seventeen years old stood there, his brown eyes wide as he held out the sonic screwdriver in front of him stiffly. He had obviously been about to re-lock the door when it had swung open. Corey felt her jaw drop as she sat down hard on the metal grating beneath her and gaped at the boy. She was in so much trouble.

Because the problem wasn't the fact that there was stranger on board the TARDIS. No, the problem was the fact that Corey recognized him almost immediately. Even if the now-baggy blue pinstriped suit and tan overcoat that he was wearing hadn't been a hint at the boy's identity, then the mop of messily gelled brown spikes and ancient brown eyes definitely were.

The Doctor winced as he looked back at the clearly stunned teen, who was still wearing her typical nighttime attire of a t-shirt and black gym shorts, and shuffled nervously in his spot.

"I ran into a… bit of a problem on the way back," he finally said sheepishly. Corey blinked once before she swallowed nervously and buried her face in her hands.

"Dear God, why?" she groaned before she removed her hands and agitatedly ran them through her hair, pulling her bangs away from her face. The Doctor's eyes widened as he noticed that the action accented certain portions of his companion's anatomy, and he immediately turned away as his now-teenaged body's hormones kicked into overdrive. Fortunately for him, Corey's agitated shout was enough to distract him. "Does the weird shit _just __**follow**__ us __**around**_?"

He couldn't help himself. Honestly, he couldn't. "Yes."

Gray eyes narrowed into a warning glare, and the Time Lord fell mercifully silent as Corey stood up and pinched the bridge of her nose in an obvious sign of stress. An awkward silence stretched between them for several seconds, and the Doctor shifted uneasily from foot to foot as he stared apprehensively at Corey. He didn't know why he was so nervous, but he was.

"Give me a bit to get dressed, and then you can tell me what the hell happened," Corey finally muttered as she sighed and shook her head. The girl turned around and started to head off towards her room, only to stop when the Doctor spoke.

"Corey?"

She stopped and looked over her shoulder at him, a single pale eyebrow raised questioningly as she tilted her head to the side. The Doctor hesitated, and then winced as a hint of exasperation flashed through her eyes. Right now, he was behaving like a complete and utter idiot. What on earth was wrong with him?

"The clothes in the wardrobe… they probably won't fit me," he hedged nervously. The Time Lord then lifted up his arms to show just how badly his suit hung on him. His body was now that of a teenager, true enough, but it wasn't anything like a full-grown man's body. Where he had been rail-thin before, now he was downright scrawny. And he had shrunk a few inches on top of that.

A look of dawning comprehension crossed Corey's face, and the corner of her mouth twitched up into a wry grin as she nodded once.

"I think I can do something about that," she said before she flashed her friend the shadow of a sarcastic smirk. "I have some shirts that might fit, but I don't know about jeans. You're still taller than me."

"I'll find something that will work," the Doctor insisted as he waved Corey off. "Get dressed. We need to talk."

She nodded before she broke into a jog in the direction of her room. The Doctor watcher her go before he let out a heartfelt groan and sagged against the closest wall, banging the back of his head against the metal wall behind him a few times. He didn't remember ever being this emotional, even when he had been a teenager the first time around. It was incredibly disconcerting, especially since he was used to being able to control his emotions fairly well. After all, Corey had done nothing that had warranted him yelling at her the way that he had.

"Why did you open that door, old girl?" he quietly asked as he pressed his hand against the wall, feeling the TARDIS's concern over his current state. "I could have figured it out."

A wave of scoffing amusement washed over him, and the Doctor frowned as he pulled away from the wall and started to head towards the wardrobe room. Even his own ship didn't believe him when he said that.

The sad thing was, he didn't blame her.

* * *

The TARDIS was conspiring against him. That was the only logical explanation. It had to be. Why else would he have had a pair of slightly worn-looking dark wash jeans thrown right in his face as soon as he had opened the door to the wardrobe, followed shortly by a gray Henley?

"Oh, come on!" the Doctor protested as he tugged ineffectively on the door, which had slammed shut and locked itself as soon as the clothing had been launched at his face. "You can't honestly expect me to wear this!"

A mechanical huff met his ears before the door snapped open once again, and the Time Lord was forced to duck as a battered leather jacket was flung at him.

"Now is not the time for you to get in one of your moods!" he bellowed irritably as he straightened up and glared at the door, which was once again firmly locked. He was not a child, and he did not need to be treated as such! He was perfectly capable of picking out his own clothing, thank you very much.

"O-kay." The Doctor turned around and saw Corey standing behind him, a look of slightly disturbed amusement on her face before she shook her head and flashed him a teasing grin. "Having a lover's spat?"

"No, the TARDIS is just being… difficult," he growled as he stooped down and picked up the articles of clothing that had been launched at him. Corey cocked an eyebrow as he straightened up, and then tossed a plaid maroon and white flannel button-down at him, which he managed to somehow catch without dropping any of the other garments.

"It's cold out there," she offered without any other explanation before she headed off towards the library. The Doctor frowned as he watched her go before he shook his head and sighed.

"Humans," he muttered wearily as he stepped into the bathroom across the hall. "Always stating the very, very obvious."

Corey didn't hear him as she entered the library, waiting until she was out of sight of anyone walking down the hall to sag against the wall before she slid down into a sitting position. The girl promptly let out a low groan as she folded her arms over her knees and stared up at the ceiling. This was way too freaking weird, even for them. As it was, it was all she could do to keep from freaking out.

The Doctor was a _kid_! When he had left, he had looked like an adult, she was positive of it. So what on earth had happened to him to cause something like this?

Before Corey could speculate any of the possible reasons why her friend had suddenly become pubescent again, a series of blistering profanities split the air as a door slammed open. Corey jumped, and promptly smacked the back of her head against the bottom of a shelf as she tried to get to her feet. The girl just clamped a hand over the sore spot and rushed out of the library, wondering just what on earth had gone wrong _now_.

The Doctor had just started to cycle through some truly foul Hungarian obscenities – and those were only the ones that she knew – when Corey skidded to a stop in front of the bathroom.

"What happened?" she asked as she stared wide-eyed at her friend. The Doctor had an expression on his face that she had long ago dubbed the 'Oncoming Storm' look, and Corey flinched as she caught a glimpse of it before he shook his head.

"Put your hand on my chest," he snapped, and Corey just stood there in the doorway before she gave him an incredulous look.

"Are you _high_?" she finally asked as she took a cautious step backwards, involuntarily glancing at the Doctor's bare – and very pale – chest. Thank god that he was at least wearing jeans, otherwise she would have slammed the door shut in his face while yelling at him about the fact that most polite societies frowned upon flashing people. "Dude, put a shirt on or something, okay? I don't need to go snow-blind from seeing your Casper-ass white chest."

"Corey, just do it!"

The girl flinched at the anger in his tone, but did as he requested, hesitantly placing the palm of her right hand against his chest with her fingers splayed out. After a few seconds she frowned slightly and looked up at the Doctor in obvious confusion.

"I feel your heartbeat, and your temperature, and they both seem pretty normal," she said slowly as she gave her friend an 'okay, now you're acting crazy' look. "I mean, it's not like you exactly have very many muscles on your chest or anything, but that's normal for most teenage boys if they're not die-hard athletics. I don't see what you're getting so worked up over, but-"

"That's _exactly_ what I'm worked up about!" the Doctor shouted as he held up a single finger right in Corey's face, causing her to draw back slightly as she seriously contemplated seeing if the TARDIS had a spare straightjacket stashed away somewhere. "_One_ heartbeat! One! I'm a Time Lord! I should have _two_!"

The girl pulled a face as she nodded once. "Okay. That's not good."

If looks could kill, then Corey would have been a pile of dust on the floor from the force of the Doctor's glare.

"No, it's not!" he growled a he dragged a hand through his hair angrily. "Also, you said my temperature felt normal. The normal core temperature for a human is 98.2 degrees Fahrenheit. As a Time Lord, my core temperature should be significantly lower than that!"

"And that means?"

"It means that I'm human right now, you stupid ape!" the Doctor snapped.

Before he could continue his rant, Corey let out a frustrated sigh before she punched him right in the face. The Doctor yelped as he reeled backwards, his hand instinctively flying up to his nose to make sure that she hadn't broken it. It wasn't; she had made sure to only hit him hard enough that it hurt, not hard enough to break anything.

"What was that for?" he demanded as he looked up at Corey accusingly. The teen glared back at him, her entire body shaking as she held her arms at her sides stiffly.

"You're freaked out about what's going on," she said in a tone of voice that could only be called dangerously calm, her expression kept carefully neutral. "Okay, I get that. I'm more than a little freaked right now too." Suddenly, the girl shoved him up against the wall behind them as she thrust her face right up into his and looked the Time Lord directly in the eyes, a dangerous glint appearing in the steely depths as she clenched her teeth. "But stop taking it out on _me_!"

Corey stared at him for a little longer before she let out a frustrated sigh and stepped away from him, dragging her fingers through her hair in an attempt to neaten it up a little.

"Just… get dressed, and then we'll leave," she finally said as she turned away and started to head towards the kitchen area. For a single moment, the Time Lord thought that he saw a pained expression cross her face as the girl walked away.

The Doctor watched her go before he let out a frustrated groan and buried his face in his hands. He needed to get this blasted human temper under control before he either ended up with a fist in his face again – in all honesty, he was surprised that Corey had enough self-restraint to refrain from breaking his nose – or he ended up in an all-out brawl with his companion. The fact that he was now human would explain quite a bit though. Adolescent males of almost any species were incredibly short-tempered, and the sudden surge of hormones in his body was enough to unbalance practically anyone.

But that wasn't an excuse. He was the Doctor, and the last of the Time Lords. He was more practiced in self-control than most monks. Until this fiasco was over, he would do his best to make sure that he didn't take out his frustration on Corey again. It wasn't fair to her, and he knew that she could only take so much before she snapped.

An encounter involving the Daleks and a crowbar came to mind, and he winced at the memory. No, he definitely did not want to live through a repeat of that incident.

The man, no, boy, grimaced slightly as he looked down at the small pile of clothing that still sat on the bathroom counter. None of them were exactly to his taste, but he would have to deal with it for the time being. With a sigh, the Doctor grabbed the Henley and pulled it on, frowning when the shirt made his hair look even messier than usual once he had pulled his head through the neck hole.

When he looked at his reflection, he failed to suppress a flinch at the sight as he placed both of his hands on the countertop and leaned forward. The boy staring back at him from the mirror looked like he was probably around the same age as Corey, with a lanky frame that strongly indicated that he still had a bit of growing to do. And the clothing made him look like an average teenage boy, probably from a working-class family.

The Doctor roughly shoved any further thoughts about his appearance out of his mind with a soft noise of frustration and grabbed the flannel button-down before he pulled it on. He stared at himself in the mirror for a few moments before he shook his head and left the front unbuttoned the way that Corey usually did. His change in wardrobe was only temporary, and it would do him no good whatsoever to fume about it. With that thought, he grabbed the jacket off of the counter and seized his trainers – the only part of his wardrobe that still remained the same – with his other hand and walked out of the bathroom.

He found Corey standing in front of the small sink in the kitchen, her headphones placed firmly on her ears and the sleeves of her green and white flannel button-down rolled up past her elbows as she scrubbed furiously at her cereal bowl. The Doctor frowned slightly as he placed his shoes and jacket on a nearby chair and approached the girl from behind. Something was wrong, even he could sense that much.

Before he could say or do anything, Corey suddenly threw both the plastic bowl and the scrubbing pad into the hot, soapy water and leaned forwards, her eyes screwed shut as she held onto the countertop with a white-knuckled grip. The boy's eyes widened as Corey's shoulders started to shake, and he heard her make an odd noise that sounded like several shaky breaths taken in rapid succession. It took him a few seconds for him to realize what was taking place, and when he did he could hardly believe it.

Corey was crying.

The odd thing was she still managed to keep a grip on herself even when she was distressed. Where most people would be sobbing loudly and attracting attention to themselves, Corey was so quiet that anyone who didn't know her wouldn't realize that she was crying. She was mostly dry-eyed, except for some tell-tale moisture at the corners of her eyes, and she kept her teeth gritted the entire time, almost as though she was trying to hold back any of the strangled noises that threatened to emerge from her throat.

When Corey Matthews cried, she treated it the same way that she treated most of her problems. It was something that she needed to handle on her own, and she wasn't going to bother anyone else with it.

However, that wasn't the disturbing part. What really unnerved the Doctor was the fact that the girl who hadn't shed a tear when she had gone to visit her parent's graves, who had endured various types of physical harm upon her person without making a sound, was crying. To be honest, he didn't even think that she had cried when she had found out that she could never go back to her reality. The thought that the world might be ending briefly crossed his mind, and the Doctor quickly dismissed it, chalking the thought up to human adolescent idiocy.

But, why was she crying? He hadn't done anything to upset her, other than show up at the TARDIS looking a few decades younger than he should have been, but that-

The reason behind his companion's uncharacteristic tears suddenly hit him, and the Doctor groaned loudly as he clapped a hand to his face. He had called her a stupid ape.

He had done many things with Corey over the past months, including teasing her and scolding her whenever she did something particularly reckless or dangerous, but he had never outright insulted her before.

Not for the first time, the Doctor silently cursed the fact that he couldn't go back and alter his own time-line. It took a lot to make him feel guilty over something – well, not a lot – but making one of his companions go into an unusual display of emotion was one of those things. Actually, this was the first time that he'd upset one of his companions like this in quite some time.

Shame flooded though him as he realized that he was the cause of Corey's distress, followed shortly by an almost overwhelming feeling of profuse embarrassment. Before he could say or do something even more idiotic, the Doctor snatched his shoes and jacket from the chair and hastily retreated from the room.

Because that was all he could ever do when he was faced with his problems. All he ever did was run away from them.

Just like a coward.

* * *

Okay, thank you so much to everyone who reviewed. The compliments and criticism are much appreciated.

Just F.Y.I, this particular fiasco is a two-parter.


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